Woolf asserts that throughout history, women have found it more comfortable to exist in anonymity. Because of societal expectations that women remain chaste and submissive, women often limit their own possibilities. Woolf believes that any great female poetic mind during the sixteenth century would have suffered a "nervous stress" that would have likely killed her. After all, even women who managed to publish their creative work sometimes found it easier to use a man's name toward those efforts; Currer Bell, George Eliot, and George Sand are only a few pseudonyms used by women to create a "safe" space for marketing and acceptance.

Woolf points to Pericles, who insisted that the greatest honor a woman can achieve is to be little talked about by men. Woolf believes that thousands of years later, women still incorporate these values into their own actions. Thus, women tend to avoid fame and to live invisibly in the background of life. Woolf believes that "anonymity runs in their blood," passed down from mother to daughter, generation after generation. Women are thus not compelled to leave a lasting mark on the world; they take no joy in carving out their own names for the world to see and instead simply live the lives which were often set into motion "almost before they were out of the nursery."

It is interesting to consider the way anonymity has shaped history's perception of women. Women often could not leave a mark on the world because they did not have the educational means to do so. Thus, anonymity could be seen as the historical efforts to oppress women, limiting their creative potential and their realm of influence. In most places in the world today, women are afforded greater opportunities. Are women therefore more recognizable in our modern world? Or do women still tend to disappear behind men who seek glory and fame? Do women today willingly keep their successes anonymous? If so, why do you think that happens?